Looking forward to the Past!!!

It wasn’t like this before…the vision can’t get blur so soon….Was that an 18 year old girl or was that just a whiff of fresh air which went past you….? My legs shouldn’t be giving away so soon….weren’t these the same legs that ran all over the football ground without a break just because the audience was calling your name..( ok ok..nick name)……why is the heart beating so fast as if it saw the girl who dumped you..…..Or is it just that the fat from the fried onion bhajjis and that one-extra samosa finally taking over me....….Oh c’mon..!!.. am I not still a few years away to reach Forty…..it’s been just half way in the run and suddenly the finish line to my first ever marathon seems so difficult… and I am thinking if my midlife-crisis a reality finally ??… I am wondering if I have aged to reach the stage where you plan a race and not run it…where you give prizes on the podium but not swim to win one…where you cheer your kid score a soccer goal with your ass resting on the bench… …

I look to the sky helplessly…feeling closer to reaching god than the dumb finish line 5 more miles away……But then out of nowhere…as if the Gods have blessed you…whizzes past an angel…She must not have been a day more than 25 yrs...with skin so clean that the sweat on her arms look like the mist sprayed by the florist when you order an expensive bouquet…She carried a pink bottle on one hand and had a Fitbit on the other…a pony tail to make your eyes move in the same rhythm… her run seeming more like a ballet and her pace threatening to make my eyes become blur again….But then…. Like magic...I feel the same energy of a teenager in those Josephs soccer field…and I am no longer worried about the heart or the fat. In a matter of 2 miles, I have already gone past that ballet dancer…. another dozen of pony tails and their jockey’s; and running to glory and feeling like the good old days!!!  Sprinting like a boy…with the finish line beep buzzing the ears.. ..it was sounding like the happy birthday song of my fiftieth year…body was feeling like the sixty year old…but the mind was living its fullest that I did 20 years ago !!!

On my usual Friday late-night-flight back home to Bangalore on a severe monsoon weather….both mine and the airhostesses eyes met. Not with each other….but on a weird fluid leaking on the left-wing-side of the flight… with strapped belt and pilot’s advice to hold-tight not even a couple of minutes old…there was already a scene set for a giant-wheel-like drop.. this leakage made it worse and the pink lips of the airhostess turning black didn’t help for sure.. The screams coming from back rows made sure I was not the only one who was a chicken..:-))  My mind was thinking how many minutes of life left for me. As the plane sank a few meters into the vacuum of the clouds....I kept telling myself not to die with puke all over me. One on side….while the corporate side of the brain kept telling how important it is to look clean and tidy even in death…the other part of the brain was quickly telling me to say final prayers and bring all those whom you love-the-most  one last time in your vision. As the airhostess kept waiting for an update from the pilot and oxygen masks opened up….only a very few actually…I was totally blank. Both right and left side of the brain stopped working..hands and legs froze and I sat there like a statue .. My most peaceful 60 seconds ever !!

As the flight landed safe finally… a thunderous applause to the crew followed from the crowd who were already standing with luggage in one hand and smart phones on the other trying to call their drivers despite no network!!… I decided that henceforth I won’t be worried…in this rebirth of sorts…I won’t build up stress too much..I won’t be grumpy …I won’t dodge my parents phone calls..I won’t get angry with kids…I will love like crazy…..I will always be there for my friends..I will restart the philanthrophy..I will…I will…and all I did was to finally catch a cab-ride back home.! 

Almost a month has gone past and nothing has changed…I guess we are conditioned to behave in the everyday routine that our Outlook-calendar decides.. a bumpy plane ride can’t change a jackass into a dog. It won’t make you a better father….won’t make you a better husband….won’t make you a better friend..wont make you a better son….Nothing changes !!… you will continue to clean the dishes….cook the meal…pack the lunch boxes..drop the kids to school…you will continue to shout at the vehicles blocking the school gate…you will always be late to office and will continue to blame the traffic…you will always think you should be paid more at work..you feel you are better than your colleague..you will always fake the smiles and you will always nod in the meetings…..you will always browse the top 10 vacation sites across world….you will always plan to take a weekend off to a hill station..you will always plan a bike ride with the boys..you will always say good mornings in whatsapp..you will always eat chapathis for lunch…plan to leave early and go for a walk with kids and end up when they are finishing dinner…you will always want to write a blog and end up in whatsapp for the good nights !!

But there is light at the end of the same tunnel…the same Whatsapp has brought a ray of hope… yes…..its let husbands and wives speak more often than before.. see them texting each other sitting next to each other…its brought the cousins together from different continents…its brought the families together…the neighbours together…the tennis partners together…the marathon runners together…its even brought office colleagues together…one with the boss and the other group without the boss..its brought childhood friends together…its helped us to find again those who were lost by choice !!

Like me,,,you will have a bright smile on your face as you read this..(mostly  if you are part of the three groups of classmates all planning for a reunion.) The school group is one year old and has been finalizing the reunion date since then…The high school group is now suddenly active with everyone wanting to meet everyone. The college group has already accepted that we are too old to go back to those good old days and we just meet for Biryani’s every monthJ…But the optimism is high with my Joseph’s crowd.. While the favorite still remains to do a meetup in Mysore or in Bangalore.. there have been talks of west coast meeting East and Dubai meeting London and a sporadic mention of doing a Goa weekend too..!!!

Now the good thing is that you feel nothing has changed when you talk to your buddies….provided you left them in School and haven’t re-discovered in between....everything seems just the way it was on that last farewell day. It feels ..it sounds…just like the same days when boys were in dirty white shirts and wrinkled shorts and the babes were in clean tops and frilly skirts …you feel it wasn’t two decades since you spoke to each other and the frequency is still matching damn right…… The mutual conversation is to go back in time.. because finally you are realizing that the present is tense and future-tense is really a mirage and all that is left is past -perfect !! You want to go back in time travel…to the place where you have tasted that happiness when you didn’t have wallets to keep your credit cards but just a few small notes in the geometry box.. you know now that the happiness is when your friends scream  you name out loud from the street with their bicycle and you are rushing to the gate to grab yours and join them… you know happiness is when you ran from school to the adjacent compound and watched 2 groups of boys fight with each other… You know happiness when you have all cycled to chamundi hills..or to KRS and had to literally hold a bullock cart to stride you back home… those days of heavy bags with boring books …and add just one small book from Sharath..the bag is lighter and you are studying all night J…!! You see the happiness in Vinod’s face when he is entering the class with just his lunch box forgetting the school bag… you know the happiness when you are down to half of the class for third language and sit right behind your favorite girl…and ofcourse..watching Ramesh sir bang the front bench with his pelvic movements… J

Even the not so normal things we did are good fun now… A tiff with Girish…..two gangs within the class room..the kisses and hugs….a fist fight with KK and a broken tooth of TG still brings smiles.. atleast on some of usJ…the same incident which made our blood boil..made us the soldiers of our girl friends… the same memories of rotten eggs on our favorite teacher’s door..the broken ventillators of the classrooms at night..the Diwali cracker inside the class..the matches lost on the soccer field..the coastal trip with 5 buses…the 11 times of watching of Darr…. …the bleeding knee from a fallen cycle right infront of the girl we followed… … the porn VCP cassette stuck in the player…..name anything that you did and you don’t want your kids to do now…. Brings a smile for sure !

Deep in our hearts …we know now that we all have become part of this universe in different directions…hasn’t a lot of water gone down the drain… haven’t we got ourselves too immersed into the web of routine…and we know for sure that we are actually not going to get more than 2 hours maximum in the entire year to meet the same bunch of gang who gave you the happiest days of your life !!!  we know its going to be a blast when we  meet…. we know we will feel like the boy or the sweet little girl we once were … …but we also know it’s going to be a small blip in our long laundry list…J  But nevertheless … isn’t it worth it…? Ofcourse yes… its worth every single mile you fly from any coast…it worth every single mile you drive from Bangalore… its worth every single idea you come up with to keep your kids and better halves occupied for those two hours… for you might have to wait for another decade to meet again…to feel young again..to smile and be happy again…!! Looking ahead to live the past !!!